Eighty-one percent of technology procurement leaders in middle-tier companies admit that they choose their software standards by looking at what the top five firms in their industry are doing. This is a flat and hard number and it tells a story of a deep and quiet fear. People do not want to be right as much as they want to be safe and safety in the corporate world is found by standing in the shadow of a giant.

I am a mason by trade and I work with stone and lime and I know that shadows do not hold up a roof but people keep trying to build with them anyway. I spent four hours yesterday afternoon standing in the mud and staring through the window of my truck at my own keys. They were sitting right there on the driver seat and the engine was humming and the doors were locked and I was on the outside.

It was a mistake born of distraction and it felt like a betrayal of my own hands because a man who works with tools should know how to hold onto them. I stood there and I watched the rain bead up on the glass and I felt like a fool because I knew the solution was right in front of me but I could not touch it. Corporate licensing is often like those keys on the seat because you can see what you need and you can see the name of the brand and you think you are in the driver seat just because you can see the logo.

But you are really just standing in the rain and paying for the privilege of watching the engine run. A small company looks at a giant firm and they see a mirror they want to step into and they think that if they buy the same licenses and use the same servers then they will share the same fate. This is not analysis and it is not strategy and it is really just a way to borrow prestige from someone who does not know you exist.

The High Cost of Borrowed Prestige

We benchmark upward because we want to be associated with the winners and we want to tell our board of directors that we are using the enterprise-grade solutions that the big boys use. It is a form of social signaling that costs a lot of money and it rarely solves the actual problems on the ground. When I go to a site to fix a wall I do not look at the blueprints for the state capitol building to decide what kind of mortar I should mix.

I look at the stone in front of me and I look at the dirt and I look at the weather. If I used the high-strength cement they use for skyscrapers on a small garden wall I would ruin the stone and the wall would crack and fall in three years because the materials were never meant to work together. But in the world of IT people do this every single day and they call it best practices and they feel proud of the waste.

The mid-tier company repeatedly references the most admired firms in the field and they do this during every meeting about their remote desktop needs. They talk about what the global banks are doing and they talk about the massive data centers in the desert and they ignore the fact that they only have forty employees who need to log in from home. They want to buy the massive enterprise agreements because it makes them feel like they are part of a club and it makes them feel like they are on the path to greatness.

They ignore the reality of their own scale and they ignore the specific needs of their own people because those needs are not as shiny as the prestige of a big contract. This is the aspirational association and it is a trap that keeps people from ever actually building something solid. You cannot buy your way into a higher class of company just by overpaying for your client access licenses.

The Hundred-Dollar Lesson

I finally had to call a guy to come and open my truck and I had to pay him a hundred dollars to do something that took him thirty seconds. I sat on a stack of bricks and I watched him and I realized that I was paying for my own lack of attention. I had been so worried about matching the historical color of the lime on a library project that I forgot how to manage my own basic equipment.

Businesses do the same thing when they get caught up in the theater of licensing and they spend hours debating the merits of different enterprise tiers while their actual users are struggling to connect to the server. They are looking at the historical prestige of the vendor and they are looking at the benchmarks of their peers and they are forgetting to just look at the seats in the office. They end up locked out of their own efficiency because they made the process more complicated than it ever needed to be.

Sizing to Your Reality

The truth is that licensing should be sized to your own reality and it should not be a tool for pretending you are bigger than you are. When you stop looking at the giants and start looking at your own server room you see that you do not need a complex web of agreements and you just need the right number of keys to get the job done.

You can find exactly what you need at the RDS CAL Store and you can buy the packs that fit your team and you can get them in fifteen minutes. This is the practical way to work and it is the way of the craftsman who knows his tools and knows his site.

We have built a culture where comparison is the primary way we measure value and we have forgotten how to measure things by their utility. A tool is only good if it works for the hand that holds it and a license is only good if it keeps your people connected without draining your bank account for no reason. I see people buy the most expensive tools in the hardware store because they want the other guys on the job site to see the brand name and then they do not even know how to sharpen the blade.

They are benchmarking their identity instead of their productivity and it is a losing game every time. The prestige you borrow by copying a leader is a thin coat of paint that will peel off the moment the sun gets hot and you will be left with the same old problems and a smaller pile of cash.

Expensive Vanity

The remote desktop services environment is a place where this vanity becomes very expensive very fast because the numbers add up and the versions change and the confusion grows. People get scared that they are doing it wrong so they buy more than they need just to be sure they are covered by the same umbrella as the prestigious firms. They buy for the version they might have in five years instead of the version they have right now and they buy for a headcount they might reach if everything goes perfectly.

They are buying a dream and they are paying for it with real money and they are doing it because they want to feel like they belong in the same league as the industry leaders. But the league you are in is defined by your profit and your work and your people and not by the stack of digital paper in your procurement folder.

The Honesty of the Work

I got back into my truck and I drove to the job site and I spent the rest of the day cutting stone and the rain stopped and the sun came out. I felt better once I was working because the stone does not lie and it does not try to be anything other than what it is. If I hit it wrong it breaks and if I set it right it stays and there is a deep peace in that kind of honesty.

I wish more businesses would find that peace in their own operations and I wish they would stop looking up at the high towers and start looking down at the work in their hands. You do not need to be a giant to be successful and you do not need a giant’s licensing bill to have a professional network. You just need to be honest about who you are and what you need and you need to buy for that reality without any shame or any pretense.

When you finally decide to stop benchmarking for prestige you will find that a lot of your stress just evaporates and you can make decisions based on facts instead of feelings. You look at the CAL calculator and you see the count and you see the price and you make the move and you go back to work. There is no need for a committee and there is no need for a three-year plan to buy a few dozen licenses and there is no need to wonder what the big tech firms would think of your choice.

They are not thinking about you at all and that is a kind of freedom if you are brave enough to take it. You can build a very good wall with simple stone and good lime if you know what you are doing and you do not need a royal architect to tell you that it is true.

Eyes on the Ground

The upward benchmark is a heavy weight to carry and it serves the vendors more than it serves the buyers because it keeps the prices high and the confusion thick. If everyone bought exactly what they needed and nothing more then the giant firms would have to find a new way to sell their prestige. But as long as we are hungry for the association with the admired we will keep overpaying for the privilege of being their peers in name only.

I am going to keep my keys in my pocket from now on and I am going to keep my eyes on the stone I am laying today and I am going to let the giants worry about their own towers. There is plenty of work to do down here on the ground and it is good work and it is honest work and it is enough for any man or any business that knows its own worth.

We should ask ourselves why we are so afraid of being small or being medium or being exactly the size we are right now. There is a strength in being lean and there is a power in being fast and those are things that the giants often lose as they grow. When you buy your licensing from a place that understands that speed and that precision you are moving toward a better way of doing business.

You are getting the perpetual licenses that belong to you and you are getting the delivery that happens while you are still thinking about the task and you are getting the support that actually knows your name. That is worth more than any brand-name association because it actually helps you finish the job.

The Best Wall in the County

I finished the wall and I packed up my tools and I looked at the work and it was straight and it was strong. It did not look like the state capitol and it did not look like a cathedral but it was the best garden wall in the county and that was plenty for me. The owner was happy and the stone was set and I drove home with my keys in my hand and the radio on.

I did not need to be a prestigious mason to feel like I had done something right and I did not need to benchmark my life against the masters of the craft. I just needed to do the work that was in front of me with the tools I had and the skill I have earned over the years. That is the only way to live and it is the only way to run a business that lasts. You buy what you need and you use it well and you leave the prestige to the people who have nothing else to hold onto.